Colombia’s Gay Adoption Ruling

Colombia’s constitutional court recently granted a lesbian couple joint guardianship of the biological daughter of one of the women in a significant ruling that brought gays and lesbians closer to full equality under the law.

In a 6-to-3 vote, the court found that local officials discriminated against Verónica Botero and Ana Leiderman five years ago by rejecting a petition to recognize Ms. Botero as the mother of a girl Ms. Leiderman conceived through artificial insemination. The ruling announced last month set a precedent for similar families, but it regrettably stopped short of giving same-sex couples the same right to adopt nonbiological children.

The court’s president, Luis Ernesto Vargas, told reporters that four of the six judges in the majority favored a more sweeping ruling that would have given gays and lesbians that broader right. The court has played a courageous and trailblazing role since 2007, when it began ruling in favor of gay plaintiffs who demanded equal rights on issues like health care coverage, inheritance rights and immigration benefits.

In 2011, the court sought to prod Congress to legalize same-sex marriage. It gave lawmakers a two-year deadline to allow same-sex unions after ruling that they were equal to heterosexual marriages under the law. But because legislative efforts to legalize same-sex marriage have failed, those unions are only administered by sympathetic judges, and their legality remains in dispute.

Mr. Vargas said the court has been deliberately measured, seeking to chart a “prudent and imperceptible” course in a country where the Roman Catholic Church and conservative political factions fervently oppose same-sex marriage.

“You can’t force society to take a giant leap,” said Mr. Vargas, who also sits on the court and is among the four liberals on gay rights. There are three conservatives and two swing votes on that bench.

Nonetheless, the court ought to continue to chip away at the last vestiges of discrimination. It has an opportunity to do that later this year in pending lawsuits that will force it to rule expressly on adoption rights and same-sex couples’ right to marry.